Construction Simulator 2 is exactly the kind of game it sounds like. It's a game where you operate a construction business, take on odd contract jobs, and grow your fleet and diversify your work. It's not exactly a great fit for mobile, but it still manages to be kind of fun in its own, weird way.

Build your business

In Construction Simulator 2, you spend most of your time playing around with digital versions of construction vehicles, like trucks, backhoes, cement mixers, and more. After a quick tutorial where you get the basics of Construction Simulator 2's controls, you're then dumped into an open world where you're free to drive your vehicles around and take on jobs.

The most basic jobs simply require a single vehicle to do things like move dirt or transport materials, but things can escalate into situations where you have to juggle multiple vehicles at once to complete a task. On top of this, Construction Simulator 2 tasks you with managing your construction company, which involves purchasing new vehicles, repairing your equipment, and making sure you efficiently complete jobs to keep your company in the black.

Time is money

Because Construction Simulator 2 is an open-world game, taking on jobs isn't as simple as selecting one. You have to make sure you have the right vehicles and you have to actually drive them to the construction site before you begin any of the actual task you're being asked to do. No matter what you're doing though–whether you have selected a job or not–the in-game clock advances and brings you closer to the end of a month where you'll have to pay all your bills.

This system clearly rewards players that are able to move through Construction Simulator 2's world quickly, but that doesn't mean you can just drive like a maniac between locations. Construction Simulator 2 actually penalizes you for running into vehicles, speeding, and even running traffic lights. These penalties can take money from your company and even make you have to perform repairs on them. This makes it almost impossible to rush through anything in Construction Simulator 2. It's a game that rewards deliberate and accurate performance and penalizes anyone that tries to cut corners.

Oddly constructed

On paper, Construction Simulator 2 has an extremely interesting design. It's built so that it incentivizes players to actually behave like a construction business owner. The only problem with this is the fact that behaving like a construction business owner isn't exactly the most exciting or fun thing to do.

Once at a job site and you're manipulating all of your specialized machinery, Construction Simulator 2 can be quite fun, and even a little relaxing. But, all of the time you have to spend driving in the game can be quite a bummer. This has a lot to do with the fact that the vehicles you're driving aren't particularly nimble, and controlling them is made overly difficult thanks to an odd, slider-based control scheme. You can skip the driving portions of Construction Simulator 2, but when you do that, you have to pay out funds from your business, which doesn't feel like a great solution.

The bottom line

Construction Simulator 2 is a all right time, but it's also a game that doesn't really jive with mobile gaming. It's a slow and deliberate game that rewards patience and accuracy on a platform that's ideal for quick experiences using a (somewhat imprecise) touchscreen. It's not exactly a bad game. I had quite a bit of fun with Construction Simulator 2 at times, but it also tested my patience constantly.

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